


touch

by clarence_sage



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Dreams and Nightmares, Fantasizing, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Incest, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Murder Kink, Other, a bit of a dead dove
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-11-20
Packaged: 2020-09-18 22:00:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20320168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clarence_sage/pseuds/clarence_sage
Summary: just a short little work about holden having dreams/fantasies about sexual assault, murder and possible incest. sort of a "what if holden is good at speaking to serial killers cause he can sorta relate" fic but it's all just thoughts and feelings and nothing real.maybe not as bad as it sounds but don't take my word for it because I am very desensitised.I'm not good at summaries, but you get the idea, yeah?(20/11/19: like two people thought it would be cool to continue this so i did)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> yay I hate myself,,,,
> 
> stuff just doesn’t bother me,
> 
> so it's hard to tell just how disturbing the stuff I write is, and I 100% loose perspective on how freaky it is. 
> 
> I'm just /that/ desensitised to freaky stuff. so I don't know if this is low key or, uh, high key. no idea.

It wasn’t constant with all of them, but one of the prevalent themes that had definitely been noticed by all of them, Bill, Wendy, him, even Agent fucking Smith… it was the fantasising. Again, it wasn't constant. Not all of them had fantasised. But many of them had. Some for years before any real crimes were committed. 

Holden swallowed, throat practically clicking and his mouth practically dry. He wasn't sure how and when he’d started thinking about this, but it was late at night and his bed was hard, cold and impersonal. And sleep wasn't coming. 

He flipped onto his side, the sound loud in the dark, and settled back, forcing himself to be still. 

The dreams he would have didn't bother him. Not while he was having them. It was now, with this context and this amount of reflection that they became particularly disturbing. Because any other excuse, like that he wasn't in control of his dreams. 

It had been first when he was a teenager. Dreams can include sex and they can include blood, but perhaps they don't often include both at the same time. But he supposed that things like this, surely they happened to other people too. And kept happening, and kept happening, until the thoughts bled into the waking hours. 

He remembered the first dream acutely. His own skin was hot, and theirs was cold. The sensation of it against his own felt almost real in his dreamscape, stayed with him until the seconds before he woke, and he remembered it vividly afterward. His mouth against theirs. He was on top, and they were beneath him. His hands were wrapped around skinny wrists, and they were moving under him, no; struggling. He held the most of them down with his body, but their arms were kept in place by his hands at the wrists. 

Whimpers, crying, turning into whining screeches for mercy. Hint: it certainly wasn’t his own voice. And if things weren’t bad enough already, he _ did _recognise the voice. As his younger brother’s. 

Later he would justify that to himself by thinking silently, he’s had that dream so many times, over and over with basically everyone he’s met. Many voices had occupied that narrative over his lifetime. Still he felt dirty for it, and with good reason. 

He didn't pay attention to the crying. Well, he did. But he made it a goal to make it louder. He ran his tongue over their neck, across their jaw as they jerked away from him. He bit them, nipping them all over with his teeth. 

And then suddenly, without warning, there was a knife in his hand and he was holding it to their throat. They were still now. Still and terrified as he teased them with the blade, dragging it across the skin not hard enough to cut, gently. 

The next thing he knew, there was velveteen blood all over his hands, he was swirling his fingers in it, rubbing his hands over their skin creating patterns of red as the streaks his fingers created revealed their pale skin beneath the red. They shuddered and shook and coughed as they bled. And finally when they stilled, he wanted to touch as much of them as possible, feel all their skin against his own, he wanted to--

He was 15. He woke up in a cold sweat, hands shaking. Soon dissolved into choked sobs, muffled by the pillow he pressed into his face. Obviously he never told anyone about it. 

But now days, when he saw someone, someone who made him look them up and down, wet his lips, feel the buzzing heat of a blush around his collar, he thought of blood, and tears, and struggling. 

And he wished it wasn't true. 

But now that he was speaking to these people, to these killers, a new context was provided. Something that meant he was thinking about these dreams, about these thoughts, and he was thinking about what they meant. About the real world. 

He started to imagine actually doing these things. How he’d do it. Who he might do it to. How he wouldn't get caught, what he’d do to them. 

And then, he’d catch himself doing it, and he’d feel dirty. He’d feel sick. And he’d glance around nervously, blinking back half-formed tears, half-expecting someone to realise what he was thinking. To see into his head. 

He stood up abruptly. In nothing but his underwear, he was cold, but he didn't care all that much. 

In the kitchen he poured an inch or so of whiskey into a water glass, tall and thin like a fairly standard set. He tipped his head back and downed it in one. Staring at the empty glass in his hands, he played with the pressure that he used to keep it held in his grip. 

He made the active choice to drop it, loosening his grip just slightly too much and watching it fall, hearing it shatter on the floor. 

He didn't make to much of an effort not to step on the glass, but he managed not to as he walked back to bed. Under the covers, cold, warm. 

_ Biting them, hearing them cry. _He lifted his wrist to his mouth, placing the edge gently between his teeth. And then he bit down, pulling the skin away from the bones in his wrist, pain throbbing though his skin, harder and long as he could stand it. Harder, harder, harder. 

When he pulled it out it was red and very raw, deep indents present that didn't seem to be going away. He could probably draw blood, if he bit a little harder. A few more times. But while he liked the feeling of biting, he didn't like the feeling of being bitten.

He turned over and fell, almost instantly, into sleep. His dreams were filled with blood and tears, struggling and pretty little whimpering sobs. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i actually had this sitting in the document for a while and 
> 
> listen
> 
> i can't quite remember what i wrote because i've only skimmed through before posting
> 
> but there may well be some triggering things in there so be wary

It was difficult. Tense, fidgeting, he deliberately focussed on other things. Song lyrics, banal images from around the office like the paper on the desk and the pencils in the cup. The word ‘stop’ over and over, picuring it in different fonts, different colours, hearing it in different ways in his head. 

But he still kept thinking about blood. 

The killers he studied typically had a type. A type of person, a pattern through which they selected their victims. Even if some weren’t aware of it. Holden knew which type of person he liked to think about. 

The best way to go about things if you’re not looking to be caught is to choose someone you don’t know. That way you're not on the list of ‘the usual suspects’. Don’t let people see you. Don’t be suspicious. Or rather, wording it better, don't act in a suspicious manner. Don’t let people see you. If you can manage it, why not even try for hiding the body. 

He thought about it a lot. 

Sometimes he’d go on drives around the neighbourhood at night, when it was late and dark and nobody was around. And sometimes he’d see someone, around his age, younger maybe, walking on the side of the road. Usually pale, skinny, small, male, dark hair. And his hands would tighten on the wheel as he’d imagine pulling over. Offering them a ride. 

Drive them somewhere quiet, out of the way. And there would be blood. 

And then tears would silently escape his eyes, drip down his nose, past his lips where he’d lick them. And he’d force himself not to. Not to do it. Not to pick them up. Because Holden wasn’t like Kemper. He felt things. He cared. He didn’t want to hurt anybody… except that he did. And he hated that. He hated that urge. 

The knife, the rope, the crowbar. The change of clothes. The garbage bag. Those things he kept in the trunk of his car that he couldn't muster the willpower to take out. He hated it. The fact that he knew what those late night drives were. That he was scouting for victims, even if he talked himself out of it every single time, he hated that he almost did it. How hard it was to ignore the itch that needed scratching, the desire to just pull over, pick them up. 

He wanted to blame the killers. He wanted to blame Kemper, the way the things he’d said had gotten into Holden’s head. The way he talked about them. Like they were normal things, normal subjects for normal conversations. Perfectly polite and ordinary. Was it Kemper’s fault? Was it because Kemper had spoken like that to him that Holden was so fucking… so… so fucked up? 

But Holden knew, he knew and he  _ hated _ that that wasn’t the case. Holden had always been fucked. But lately he noticed that he was detaching. Desensitized and slowly but surely losing his ability to gauge whether or not something was wrong. No, that’s not right. No, he knew when something was wrong. Intellectually he was perfectly aware. But he couldn't feel it. He couldn’t gauge where it fits on the scale of disturbing-ness. It didn’t bother him. He didn’t  _ feel  _ disturbed no matter how disturbing, he  _ knew, with his mind, not his heart _ how disturbing it actually was. 

Occasionally he’d start a conversation about the things his killers spoke of, and people would look at him like there was something wrong with him, they’d look at him like that and he’d realise that the others, the people who weren’t like him, the  _ normal  _ people, they found all that perverse. They found it horrible, and disgusting, and  _ disturbing.  _ And he didn't feel that. 

He obsessed over all these things, he didn't know when to stop. But he did, he just didn’t feel it. Everything felt so bland, so boring all the time. When was it going to get better? When was it going to get better? 

And some days, some nights back home, when he felt like he was floating on nothing, seperate from his own body and walking through a dreamscape, he would feel numb and start to give up, give in to what he wanted to do. He felt detached. And he’d pick up a knife and handle it. Feel the weight in his hand. 

But he had to fight back. He couldn’t do it. He can’t do something like that. 

Why was he like this? Like a child, over and over,  _ not fair, not fair, not fair.  _

He’s seeing Ed again, even after the incident. He doesn’t take Bill. They talk quietly, the guards can’t hear them. He doesn’t tell Ed what’s happening to him, but he asks question upon question about what it was like leading up to his first murder. What did he think, what did he feel. How did the fantasies begin, how did they progress. Was there a point when he realised he couldn't go any longer without doing it. Without killing. And he gave in and did? 

He wonders if Ed can see right through him. If Ed knows what he thinks about, what he dreams about, what he wants. He suspects that Ed does. But neither of them acknowledge it. They dance around it the same way polite society avoids discussing the minor transgressions of its members. 

It was late at night, and Holden was staring at a wall in the dark. He had been brought out of a void-like haze by the feeling of warmth crawling down his face, down his lips to his chin. His nose is bleeding. It hasn’t happened in a couple of years, he feels like a kid now. 

He drank more often. He didn’t think it was excessive, not yet, but it was noticeable. 

He ran his fingers through the flowing blood, swirling it over his chest. It’s warm, it’s silky, and its texture becomes fascinating as it dries, from sticky to flaky. He rubs bloody fingers over his lips, tasting it. It’s his own damn blood and he can do what he wants with it. He only wishes he didn’t imagine that it was someone else’s. 

He has so many reasons to hate himself, and he definitely does. Maybe he’s just a bad person. 

In the morning he shows up to work, and he knows everyone else is blind to it, but there’s something paranoid inside him that tells him everyone knows, everyone looks at him funny, everyone hates him just as much as he does, everyone knows, everyone knows, 

But he knows they don’t. 

His feelings don’t listen, though. His feelings run rampant, and he ends up hyperventilating, sobbing and unable to speak on the floor in a random disused storage room down the hall. He feels like a monster, constantly battling with something in him that just wants him to not care about his human values. Something in him that wants him to forget the importance of every human life but his own, something that eggs him on to fulfill his fantasies. 

The reason he feels like a monster is because on some level, he's already given in. Given up. It’s not the thought of killing that scares him anymore. It’s the thought that the thought of killing doesn’t scare him. 

Because as he is, he knows he wouldn’t feel guilty if he killed someone. But he also knows that he  _ would  _ feel guilty about not feeling guilty. 

It’s paradoxical, a fine line that’s become a canyon, and doesn’t make sense. He hates it, he hates it, he hates himself, he hates everything that there has been, is, and ever will be. He  _ hates.  _

_ Why does he even do this anymore?  _

But no, he can’t think about giving up. Because for Holden, giving up means one of two things: his own death, or someone else’s. And he has a nasty feeling that the cocky little egotistical demon living in his brain calling itself Agent Ford isn’t willing to let him die. If Holden gives up, his superego dissolves and his id gets free reign. And that would be… insanity. 

But it was so hard to keep trying though all of it. Every day he grew wearier of hating himself, thought it must be easier, simpler, to give up morals entirely, and not have a care in the world about it anymore. But then people would die, and he wasn’t ready yet. Yet? Why did he think  _ yet _ ? 

Monstrous. Once again like a child, it wasn’t fair. 

**Author's Note:**

> should I continue this monstrosity?
> 
> also pls give me comments, I love you, tell me you love me back


End file.
